In order to build a successful internet business, you need some way to store and access different lists for subscribers, potential customers, and those who have purchased your products. While you could set up several spread sheets with their names and email addresses, an autoresponder available through email marketing companies is a much better choice.
Without an autoresponder, a list of your subscribers will be a lot more tedious, time-consuming and expensive to build and to maintain. For example, if you have 500 people on your list, imagine how much time it would take to manually type and send an email to each of them.
You would manually need to enter the name and email address, type a subject line and then copy and paste your message for every single person you want to send an email to. This would take a huge amount of time which would be better spent on building your list. However, with an autoresponder, you will only need to type your subject line and message once and your autoresponder will send your message to everyone on your list at the press of a button.
But what exactly is an autoresponder? – An autoresponder is a computer program that automatically answers email sent to it and can also broadcast a single message or send a message series to a list. An autoresponder can be simple or very complex.
Autoresponders are often used as email marketing tools to immediately provide information to prospects, to keep in contact with past customers, and to help develop a relationship with potential customers. An autoresponder can be used to send out promotional messages to an opt-in list, to deliver email courses, to send out a newsletter, and even helps to build and grow an opt-in list. An autoresponder can also answer FAQs about a business and send information such as price lists or other information about a company.
So how do you pick an autoresponder service? – You will need to do some research to help you decide which email marketing company best fits your needs. However, do not under any circumstances choose a company because it offers the lowest price. And NEVER use a free autoresponder service.
In order to be successful, your subscribers must think of you as the go-to expert in your niche. How can you portray yourself as an expert if you use free services? These free services will make you look very unprofessional and it will therefore be next to impossible to build a trusting relationship with your subscribers.
If you type ‘Comparison of Email Marketing Companies’ in your browser’s search box, you will find many sites that offer reviews as to what service is the best, However, the declared winner will change from review site to review site. There is no consistency whatsoever and rarely will any of these sites recommend the same provider as being the number one service.
Therefore, don’t ever rely on a review site for your final decision before purchasing ANY product or service. While one site believes a certain product or service is the best, another review site might place that same product or service in third, fourth or even in a lower position. Instead, use these sites to get a quick over view of what each service offers.
You will need to decide what email marketing company fits your needs today as well as in the future. Choose wisely as it can be very difficult to change services. Plus, not everyone on your list will change from the old service to a new one. Which of course means you will lose a percentage of your subscribers. After working so hard to build your list, do you want to lose even one subscriber?
